Comparing the Modern Organizational Theory and Improvisation

"Organization theory deals with the formal structure, internal working, and external environment of complex human behavior within organizations. As a field spanning several disciplines, it prescribes how work and workers out to be organized and attempts to explain the actual consequences of organizational behavior (including individual behavior) on work done and on the organization itself."(Gordon and Milkavoich, 147) It has been evolving for centuries on how should work be done in the public administration and how the organization should be. "Research findings have emerged about what motivates workers and how different incentives affect various tasks, employees, and situations; and the environments in which they operate." (Gordon and Milakovich, 147) Even with all those research statistics and different modes of thought toward organization there are still situations in which the rational approach to public decisions does not help. For instance, what if the environment is instable and has no guidelines or precedents to follow? In the case of Israel, improvisation has changed the organization of public administrations, uprooted the conventional models for policymaking, and strayed off from the Weberian model of administration. This kind of improvisation is the product of "cultural and personal predilections and environmental circumstances,"(Sharkansky and Zalmanovitch, 1)

The use of improvisation is dependent on the culture and the environment in which policy decisions are made. For example, the use of improvisation is found more so in Spanish managers. Why? "Spanish mangers express an explicit preference for spontaneous, improvised managerial style over the methodical and formal planning favored by their American, Eng...

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... from the inability to implement policy, or itself be the policy, as in the case of building housing quickly for immigrants. It can be guided by an overriding vision." (Sharkansky and Zalmanovitch, 7)

Improvisation has the ability to arrive to conclusions or actions in an expedient and ingenious way when there are no other alternatives available. It is a means of avoiding stagnation. It is useful when there is uncertainty, few precedents, reliable resources or protocols, few facts and suitable routines; "when there is little way of evaluating the relative efficacy of the various alternatives; and when there is pressure to act in a short time or with resources that appear to be sufficient. Modern organizational theory can only go so far to solve public administrative problems, but with creative thinking such as improvising more can be done for the community.